{"id":6590,"date":"2026-05-07T19:29:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6590"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:29:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:29:58","slug":"twolves-beat-cards-5-1-title-still-up-for-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6590","title":{"rendered":"T’wolves beat Cards 5-1; title still up for grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two big games Friday will decide North Central League I varsity baseball race<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAKEPORT >> Dane Salo\u2019s offspeed offerings had Clear Lake\u2019s batters on their heels most of the day, and the Fort Bragg Timberwolves kept the outcome of the North Central League I race in a state of limbo Wednesday with a 5-1 win over the Cardinals at Lakeport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake (11-2 league, 15-7-1 overall) could have clinched no worse than a share of the league title with a victory. Instead, the NCL I race now hinges on the outcome of a pair of Friday games \u2013 Clear Lake at Fort Bragg (9-4), and Kelseyville (10-3) at St. Helena (11-2), with the possibility of the race ending with a solo champion \u2013 either Clear Lake or St. Helena, co-champions (Clear Lake and St. Helena if they both win), or tri-champions (if Fort Bragg beats Clear Lake and Kelseyville defeats St. Helena (Clear Lake, St. Helena and Kelseyville would all end up at 11-3 in that event).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said he remains confident the Cardinals will emerge victorious Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith this team, I don\u2019t see any team holding us down two games in a row,\u201d Horne said. \u201cI\u2019ll hang my hat on that\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the exception of an 8-3 loss earlier this season at St. Helena, Clear Lake had 10-runned the opposition in its other league games. Salo, a known commodity to Horne, held them to four hits and a solitary run, that scoring in the bottom of the third on a bloop single into center field of the bat of Jesse Hayes that barely eluded a diving Fort Bragg center fielder, who had the ball pop out of his glove at the last second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ezekiel Lopez had two of those hits, including a double, the only extra-base hit Salo allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI coached him during summer ball,\u201d Horne said of Salo. \u201cHe\u2019s a great young man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Horne, “Dane did a good job not putting people on base and a good job throwing first-pitch strikes. Good pitching is all about disrupting timing and he disrupted our timing today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salo walked none and only struck out three, but the Fort Bragg defense made all the plays behind him, including a couple of outstanding catches in left field by Luke Fosse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir left fielder made two great plays, and their center fielder ran everything down in the gaps,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Clear Lake batters were able to hit a handful of balls a long way, Horne said the Cardinals would have been better served hitting line drives in front of Fort Bragg\u2019s deep-playing outfielders instead of trying to hit the ball over their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had us well scouted,\u201d Horne said. \u201cTheir outfielders caught everything we hit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Timberwolves took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first and added two more runs in the second inning against losing pitcher AJ Bruch, who hurt himself by hitting two batters in the Fort Bragg second. Both ended up scoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was ahead in the count to both of them,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Bragg tacked on two more runs in the seventh with some solid hitting, including a Chris Hernandez double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best hitters in this league,\u201d Horne said of Hernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruch went the distance for the Cardinals as did Salo for the Timberwolves. Bruch allowed eight hits, struck out seven and walked one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryken Villanueva had the other hit for Clear Lake, which is trying to win a league title \u2013 or some share thereof \u2013 for the first time since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t make very good adjustments at the plate,\u201d Horne said. \u201cThe lack of adjustments in the box really hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of how the NCL I standings end up, all four of the NCL I\u2019s top teams are headed to the North Coast Section playoffs, though probably not all in the same division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAME NOTES:<\/strong> Fort Bragg was the only team that beat Clear Lake twice in league play a year ago. The Timberwolves have won the last eight league meetings between the two teams, dating back to Clear Lake\u2019s last win, 5-4, on April 15, 2022, in Lakeport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two big games Friday will decide North Central League I varsity baseball race Lake County Sports on Facebook LAKEPORT >> Dane Salo\u2019s offspeed offerings had Clear Lake\u2019s batters on their heels most of the day, and the Fort Bragg Timberwolves kept the outcome of the North Central League I race in a state of limbo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,16,58,84],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6591,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions\/6591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}